VIDEO: North Carolina nurse scales cliff during storms to get to hospital

ASHE COUNTY, NC (WTVD) — An North Carolina nurse is being praised for her dedication after her husband recorded a video of her climbing a cliff during the height of Monday night’s severe storms.

“She’s climbing a rock cliff to get up there, up to the highway, to deliver Ashe County’s two newest citizens,” Todd McNeill said in the video he posted to Facebook.

“I knew that I had to be there,” Maggie McNeill said. “There wasn’t really an option.”

McNeill is a labor and delivery nurse at Ashe Memorial Hospital. She knew regardless of the storm, at least two women were in labor and she had to help bring two babies into this world.

“It’s my passion. I have always said if I can’t be at home with my kids full-time, that I’m very thankful to have a job here to help other mamas become mamas,” McNeill said. “It’s something, a calling I feel like God placed on my life.”

Her husband took a picture of a creek completely washed over the road McNeill takes to work. Once her father said he could pick her up at the highway at the top of the cliff, she decided to hike.

“Our patients are really important to us. (Nurses) being there for each other is really important for us. I think had it been any of the other nurses, they would’ve made the same decision,” McNeill said.

That commitment is not a surprise to the hospital’s CEO Laura Lambeth.

“I am truly blessed to have a compassionate and dedicated staff,” Lambeth said in a statement. “Maggie is just awesome. I am not surprised of her dedication and going the extra mile for her patients. She does it every day.”

McNeill said she has never had to go to those extremes to get to work before, but would not hesitate if she has to again.